In his sermon on Isaiah 40:25-31, Scott Brown explores the theme of waiting on the Lord, emphasizing its significance for Christians. He explains that waiting on the Lord involves a comprehensive engagement with God's attributes, including His holiness, creation, control, and sustenance. Brown underscores the necessity of beholding God in His vastness and personal concern, illustrating how God's holiness and power are central to understanding our own place and strength. The sermon outlines six specific actions to take when waiting on the Lord, each linked to God's nature and promises. Brown details how waiting involves active engagement with God's word and implies a pursuit of holiness and trust in His sovereignty. The sermon also contrasts human frailty with divine strength, highlighting that true strength is found in God alone. Throughout, Brown reiterates the blessings that come from waiting on the Lord, such as renewed strength, salvation, and the absence of shame, ultimately pointing to the anticipation of Christ's return as the ultimate fulfillment of waiting. The sermon concludes with a call to the congregation to behold God continually, allowing His presence to sustain and guide them.

Sermon text today is Isaiah 40 verses 25 through 31. To whom then will you liken me? Or to whom shall I be equal? Says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number.

He calls them all by name, by the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord and my just claim is passed over by my God have you not known have you not heard the everlasting God the Lord the creator of the ends of the earth neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings like eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint let's pray heavenly father you are strong and mighty and you alone have the power to save.

I pray that you would bless the reading of your Word, that you would bless the preaching of your Word today. You would fill this place with your spirit. That those who do not know you would know the peace and joy that comes from the knowledge of you, from salvation, Lord. We pray these things in your name. Amen.

Learning how to wait on the Lord might be one of the hardest things for Christians. But what does it mean to wait on Him? What is implied in it? How do you change your fitful disposition, your erratic understanding of everything going on around you and wait upon the Lord. I think what we find from this passage that waiting on the Lord really encompasses your whole life.

It's code for really the most significant event in all of history and that is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Waiting waiting and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ are connected in scripture and there's imagery here for us to help us to understand what it really does mean to wait for the Lord and so here in in our scripture this morning in verses 25 through 41 We come to the final message that we'll be giving on Isaiah 40. Of course, there is a great temptation to do a summary sermon and then an encapsulation of that summary sermon regarding its wider context. And then that would be sermon number two sermon number three actually because I don't think I really want to leave Isaiah 40 And so then sermon number three would be you know what the significance of Isaiah 40 is for the coming chapters You know it, but I don't know if I don't think we'll do that But it's been such a marvelous journey through one of the most significant passages of scripture. And it's been a blessing, I know, to us to behold our God.

This is the theme of the whole matter, that we would behold God. This is our greatest need. And so God has been presented to us in various aspects of his nature and his character, in his power and his infinitude. So we've been just walking through the language of scripture to help us grasp what God is all about. We've seen his vastness, but here we see his loving kindness as well, his personal concern.

While he is on the one hand so incomprehensibly vast, he also is like a shepherd who gathers his lambs in his arms. And here We learn that he is vast again and different language to explain him. But yet he takes a child of his and he puts him on an eagle and he mounts up with wings like eagles. And so you have this back and forth that Isaiah has of God's vastness and yet his personality and his love. He's so vast but he's also, he presents himself very small really at eye level to the human being and this is this is our God now this chapter as a whole needs to be understood and I'm not going to labor too long and trying to summarize this whole chapter But Isaiah 40 begins with the inner part of the soul, the comfort that comes from the peace of God.

The power of the gospel to, for iniquity is pardoned and where for all of your sins, what do you get for it? You get double blessing from God. He comes and pours out His grace. And so in verses 1 through 11, there's this beautiful proclamation of the gospel, how into this world of chaos and rebellion into your whole inner world of chaos and rebellion God sends his son He sends the Lord Jesus Christ to comfort your soul to pardon you from your iniquity this is what God does he He interrupts your life and and he sends this mighty and tender comforter and the one who pardons. You know we see in this first section how man prefers his own philosophies but we find that God is independent of all the thinking of man and he thinks so much higher.

Man prefers his own gods and Isaiah is careful to belittle the idolater, the idolatries and the idols themselves and and he he speaks of this vastness of God but how stupid you become when you serve your idols. You become like your idol. And He goes to great lengths to speak of just how ridiculous it is to prefer anything but God. And then he turns and he says that he is so different. He sits above the circle of the earth.

He sees all things. He knows all things. He's not like the idols of this world who you will ultimately despise and throw to the ground and you will hate them because they are so unprofitable. And he speaks of what he has done in nature. He speaks of what he has done in nature.

He speaks of what he has done in history with judges and with the princes of the earth. How they're nothing to him. There's no judge or prince. There's no political rule or power that ever existed that he did not raise up by his own hand and throw it down at his own will According to his own desire and according to his own wisdom But then here in this in this chapter or in this this section we find that there's another problem There's a complaint in verse 27 In the midst of the greatness and the power and the beauty and the love of God, we still find a complaint in our hearts and we say where is God? Has he left me out?

Why is this happening to me? Has he forgotten about me? And so Isaiah begins to deal with this whole matter again of this complaint that rises up in the heart and in the midst of this whole life of waiting on the Lord. And he begins to explain again, after explaining the transitory rulers of this world, that they were scarcely planted, scarcely sown, and God blows them away, then he turns and makes a very similar argument that he made in verse 18. If you see that, to whom then will you liken God, Or what likeness will you compare to him he takes back up that issue?

Who is God and? The answer to that question gives us our Understanding of what it means to wait upon God. What does it mean to wait upon God? How do you wait upon God? And I have six things that you must do and know if you are to be waiting on God.

And I'll just name them and then we'll take them one by one. First of all you must behold the incomparable holy one who speaks. That's verse 25. Second, behold the creator of the heavens, verse 26. Number three, you must behold the controller of the heavens verse 26 be Number four you must behold the interrogator of man verse 27 Number five you must behold the inexhaustible Sustainer verse 29 and then number six you must behold the rejuvenator of the weak.

And so we find this first way that we are able to wait upon God, and that is that we must behold the incomparable Holy One who speaks. Verse 25. Now there are these questions in verse 25 from God. Now Isaiah is full of questions. The words of verse 25 are almost identical to the words in verse 18, but this time the voice has changed.

In verse 18, it's the voice of Isaiah who's asking the questions. In verse 25, the voice changes and now God is asking the questions and This is very much like job 38 and of course, you know, these are leading questions There are many questions that are in this chapter and there are hundreds of questions in the Bible. I was told there are 24 questions in this chapter. But these are leading questions and they lead us to recognize a particular sin. It's the sin of reducing God, of minimizing God, of thinking small of God and great of yourself, small of God and great of your problems and the challenges that are around you.

This is really the great sin of mankind to reduce God and to end up actually forgetting who he is like. So these questions, they are meant to lead you to conclusion. You don't have to answer many questions. You just have to ask them. And the question itself leads you to the conclusion.

This is what you call a rhetorical question. And the conclusion is, to these questions, are you cannot liken me to anything. You cannot exactly compare me to anything. Anything you might think of is only a shadow. It points you in the right direction but it's only a shadow of something infinite and incomprehensible.

This is why God refers to himself here as the holy one. Now this is very important, the holy one. One of the commentators of Isaiah that I read, Alec Mottier, says that this statement, the holy one, this identity of God, is a killing blow to any thought of comparing God to anything with any kind of exactitude because he is beyond all of these things. And so while we've seen this picture of his unmatched power and his independence and wisdom and his absolute sovereignty in verses 22 and 23, his absolute authority over all rulers in verse 24, he now speaks of himself as holy. And we have to pause here on this word that's used because the definite article is not here.

And it indicates that holy is his identity. You would more accurately say the holy speaks. The holy, he himself in all that he is, his entire personality his entire identity is Holy He's completely separate. He's different You know the holiness of God is that he is absolutely different He's not like anything that you can even comprehend. He's greater than that.

Like if you say in His holiness he's the bread of life. Well, the bread, your ideas of bread are nothing compared to who he is as bread and nourishment. Anything that you can liken God to is only a dim shadow. And this is really the heart of the gospel. That we need someone who is completely different than we are.

Someone who thinks completely different than we are. Someone who is holy in a way that we never ever could be. So that his holiness Could come and be imputed to us. We need God to be holy. We need him to be absolutely holy We do not need God to be like us or to think like us at all He is the holy and that's What Isaiah is communicating really from the voice of God himself.

If God was not holy, man could have no hope. Man would be hopelessly lost in the morass of his own idols and the idols of the people around him, if God was not holy, if God was not able to rescue him from his unholiness by his holy Son, by his holy Word, by his Holy Spirit, for God is holy, he is thrice holy as the Bible makes so clear. And without the holiness of God we would be hopelessly enslaved, we would be eternally incarcerated in our own prison of unholiness, we would be everlastingly trapped in darkness and punishment without the holiness of God. And so it matters that God is holy. Because He is holy, then we can be made holy by his holy son.

Well there's also bad news in that because he is holy we see our own unholiness and our only hope is to repent and believe in the gospel to trust in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone for our holiness. There is no holiness of our own that has any value at all. It's filthy rags, it's all bankruptcy. Everyone in the world wants to be a good person. They want to present themselves as so good and erudite and so tolerant and so so urbane.

Everyone wants to be so good and you meet people like this all the time. They want to be good people. This is why there's so much good going on in the world. There's so many people who want to be good good people are everywhere and yet They are hopelessly enslaved by their own vision of holiness and their their desire to be good people will be their destruction. And this is why God must be holy.

He's describing himself. Holiness is the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That God is holy. That we need Him to be holy because we are not holy. Our only hope is to behold Him.

To behold His holiness day by day and to be transformed into his likeness progressively through this sanctification that runs all one's life long. And we find that we begin life so unholy and then he begins to work his holiness in us. And so he uses this term of himself, holy. So his holiness addresses our confusion in daily life. It addresses the question of who is God and where is God and what is he doing and he is holy.

And then the second thing we must do if we would wait on the Lord after beholding the incomparable holy. After that we must behold the creator of the heavens. That's verse 26. Now there's a command in verse 26. Lift up your eyes on high.

It's a command to lift up your eyes to look up. The command is there because we need the command. We're so fixated on this earth. We're so fixated on our own problems and our own threats and things like that. Our only hope is to lift up our eyes on high to the holy and and and and for what to see his creation and so he says lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things in waiting upon the Lord one of the most important things that mankind can do is to lift up his eyes and see the created world to remind himself who God is and who he is you know John Calvin suggests that man has been uniquely created to look up into the heavens, whereas many of the animals, they just look down.

I'm very aware of this when I see my cows. They're always looking down. Cows hardly ever are looking up. They're almost always looking down. And this is true of so many of the animals They're actually created to look down but man as Calvin suggests man has the capacity to lift up his eyes on high like no other creature.

And I know there are certainly exceptions to that. But God made man alone, says Calvin, erect and bade him to look at what may be regarded as his own habitation, God's own habitation. And so this is the whole matter of lifting up your eyes. This is why our greatest help in any time of need is to do what David spoke of in Psalm 119 is to lift up your eyes because the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows us handiwork. Day unto day utter speech, in other words God speaks to you through his creation.

And so we behold the creator of the heavens. If you would know how to wait on the Lord, then you would behold the Creator in all of His glory. You would lift up your eyes. You would do what mankind was made to do, to easily lift up his eyes under the hills from where his help comes. And then The third way of waiting is found at the end of verse 26, to behold the controller of the heavens.

This verse 26 really speaks of the absolute control of God in the order of the heavens. And so God says of himself that he brings out their hosts by number He calls them all by name by the greatness of his might and the strength of his power not one is missing. And here you have this picture of the innumerable stars and there's an exact number of them that God has created. Man cannot count the stars. We know that for sure.

When scientists look out into the heavens, they cannot get to the end of it. They make these vast estimates that are completely inaccurate. But at least they have the word Infinity connected to them and so he he uses this language of that implies a military order as if This host of heaven is brought out by number like an army and and he names them not one is is out of place You know even even though they're flying through space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour Hurdling through this vast eternity Infinity God has them ordered and they are His army. He's named them one by one. That not one of them is out of place.

You know, you can go out and you can look at the stars and you can see the same stars that your grandfather saw. You can see the same stars that the shepherd saw. You can see the very same stars that Adam saw when he was first created Because God has set these things in order for his own glory. And as we are waiting upon the Lord, it's so important that we understand that He is the controller of the heavens. Job 9 verse 7 says, He commands the sun.

He seals off the stars. He alone spreads out the heavens and Then he moves earth and he says he treads on the waves of the sea he made the bear Orion and the Pleiades and the chambers of the south he does great things past Finding out yes Wonders without number and just saying that just causes us to ask why would I ever rebel? Why would I ever turn my eyes anywhere else? Why would I allow my eyes to be turned to the profane and unprofitable and silly things of this world? Why would I live for such unprofitability when God is so absolutely Comprehensively in control.

Why would I defy him any moment of my day? It's insanity to do such a thing. God knows all of these stars. He brings them out by number and He controls them. At the same thing, He knows the slightest detail of the most insignificant person in the world.

He capsulizes this idea when he speaks to the Church of Laodicea. He not only knows all of the individuals but he knows the churches. He says of Laodicea, I know your works. I know you. Not only do I know all of the stars, I know everything about your church.

I see into everything in your church. The Lord Jesus Christ is always walking among the lampstands of his church and he always knows everything. And so it's critical while we are waiting on the Lord That we are beholding the controller of the heavens. And then fourthly, that we would behold the interrogator of man. In verse 27 we find this complaint and the complaint is documented, why do you say oh Jacob and speak oh Israel my way is hidden from the Lord and my just claim is passed over by my God.

We need to explain this despondency. We must explain what this means. This is a the documenting of the complaint of man. And God is stating here a question that everyone asks. And the question has different forms.

You know, how could there be a God when there's so much suffering in this world? How could there be a God when I feel so alone in this world. How could there be a God when there's so much pain in my life? Human beings complain that God has left them by the wayside, that he does not care. And this is the common complaint that is raised in our hearts.

And we often, particularly when we're going through trials, you know, our eyes are downcast and we begin to look at the ground again. Our countenance has fallen and it begins to look downward. It looks at this earth as our portion because we're always tempted to make this world our portion. And when we do that we fall into despondency you can always you can always know why you have fallen into despondency it's because you have made this world your portion you have made yourself God That is always the heart of the matter of despondency. You have created a world that is you centered.

And somehow you think the world revolves around you, but no, the world revolves around God. And in His infinite wisdom, in His perfect plan, in His holiness to make holy. And so when he asks why, why do you say, Why do you say, oh Jacob, and speak, oh Israel? And he's revealing that their feelings are based on falsehoods. They're feeling all alone, but they're not alone at all.

And it's the kind of situation that we all face where we let our feelings dictate to us our sense of place in the world and and the The manner of complaint here is exposed by the way. Because God speaks about this complaint in the perfect tense. The continuous tense. In other words, this is what you are always saying. God is saying you are always saying this.

You are always saying why is there so much pain in my life? You're always saying, why are you so alone in this world? You're always saying that. God is just revealing the sin of complaining. The sin of losing a sense of thankfulness and gratitude for his great and powerful work that he has done.

And so, why do you say, in other words, why do you keep on saying, oh Jacob, my way is hidden, blah, blah, blah, the beat goes on. You're complaining because you're continually forgetting you're ignoring God you've you've forgotten the doctrine that was designed to rescue you from your despondency And then the content of the complaint is explained very clearly and there are actually two complaints here. I think we should look at them because they're important because they identify various idols and sins of our hearts. The first complaint is of a lack of care. And this is revealed in the way he says it.

My way is hidden from the Lord. My way. My way through life. Now this isn't the first time or the last time Isaiah is going to use this word way. The way of life.

He speaks of my way. You know we're so obsessed about our way. This is why you even have songs that are written. You know I did it my way We are so concerned about our way, and we're somehow so proud that we cannot Conceived that God would divert us to a different way than our own. That somehow he would contradict our inclinations somehow.

That he would make something happen that we did not plan. While we're waiting for our blessing to come in, He blesses us in a way that we did not plan for our way Because his ways are are greater and better and more wonderful Than our ways in Isaiah chapter 30 verse 21 God tells his people that He would guide them in their way. He says, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. In Isaiah 35 verse 8, He said that He would prepare a highway, a safe highway. It's the highway of holiness.

So Isaiah uses this term of way in 42 verse 16 he talks about that even though they're blind that God will lead them on the way. In chapter 43 verse 19 he tells his people that he will care for them in the wilderness in the desert he'll make us make streams in the desert actually along their way in Isaiah 48 God makes another promise that he would lead them in the way. So their first complaint is that God is not leading them, not caring for them, not paying attention to where they're going. This is the first complaint. It's about the way, about your way in life.

The second complaint is against the fairness of God. And when he says, my just claim is passed over, God is accusing Judah of questioning his justice. God is accusing, or Judah is accusing God of questioning his righteous justice and his fairness in dealing with them. And they're actually complaining that God has not been administrating his justice toward his people in a way that is helpful to them. And he's Identifying one of the common maladies of our souls feeling sorry for ourselves That God has not been dealing justly with us that we somehow got the raw deal lamenting Being filled with self-pity You know, I think one thing that's so clear if you've studied your own life you know that self-pity never led you to any good thing it never did And it never will and yet and yet it happens doesn't we fall into self-pity and we say woe is me We say why has God dealt so poorly?

Why has his? Judgment been so poor toward me in leading me And if this is one of our greatest problems. We begin with ourselves. This really is the great problem in every part of our life. In our personal life, in our family life, in our business life, in our church life, we begin with ourselves.

We obsess about our condition, our feelings, our fears about what might come to pass, our regrets of the past. We begin with ourselves. And whenever we begin with ourselves, we're always led astray. But when we begin with God, when we behold God, everything changes. And Isaiah has been just arguing with us with every line in this chapter.

To behold your God, stop starting with yourself and begin with God begin with God and the light dawns and the doors open lift up your eyes to the heavens and see God this is This is the beginning of wisdom for all of us, but yet we begin with ourselves. And the truth is we cannot understand anything about ourselves until we understand God. You know it's very important that we understand things about ourselves, but you cannot understand anything about yourself until you understand God in His holiness and then when you can see God in His holiness then you have an accurate way to understand yourself and what is happening with you because God does have us understanding what is happening with us but it's only in light of his holiness God is chiding this nation. He's chiding Judah and he's saying, how can you say your way is hidden? How can you say that?

And he says, remember Jacob? Remember Jacob, he says, oh Jacob, and speak, oh Israel. And he uses these two names used to deliver his message, Jacob and Israel. Remember God changes Jacob's name Jacob wrestled with God he he had striven with God and with men and and prevailed in Genesis 32 verse 28 says remember remember Jacob remember remember that Remember I overcame him, I subdued him, I blessed him. Stop saying that I'm not just.

I am just. I keep all of my promises. I keep my covenant. I change people's names Because I am a covenant-keeping God when these terms are used Jacob and Israel This is code for the covenant-keeping of God and That God God labors with those who are His. He wrestles with them.

He is near. He sees. He wrestles with man. And He prevails. And he changes your name.

And so God is trying to destroy this whole argument, this whole morass of self-pity, my way is hidden, and he says, no, your way is not hidden. I have kept my covenant. Look at Jacob. Look at Israel. Know that when I am wrestling with you and you are wrestling with me, I'm keeping my covenant.

I am faithful. And so they're saying that God has left them out to dry that they've been passed over and nothing can change And Isaiah is reminding them that he's a covenant-keeping God And the hearer of these words would remember the covenant promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all those who are called by his name all those who wrestle with him all Those who lift up their eyes under the hills all of those who desire to take hold of God and not let go But Jude is having a fit of forgetfulness and forgetting the covenant that was sealed with the omnipresence of God and the faithfulness of God in making his covenant and the blood of Jesus Christ, the sealing of the blood of the covenant. So you know that we all know that there's nothing more discouraging to think that God is not there and that you've been passed over by God. There's nothing that will sap your strength than to make Accusations that God is not being just with you But if you would behold your God you would you would you would need to behold the interrogator of man Who will ask you why?

Why? Why do you say that Why do you say I'm not taking care of you? I am your shepherd And then fifthly Behold the inexhaustible Sustainer verse 28 have you not known have you not heard? The everlasting God The creator of the ends of the earth neither faints nor is weary His understanding is unsearchable So these questions are designed to pull Judah out of her forgetful funk and her fitful failing that she's in the midst of to draw Judah back To a sense of the everlasting source of strength That he is inexhaustible in his sustaining of absolutely everything that nothing ever falls to the ground not a leaf Will fall to the ground that he's not sustaining Everything and he's referring again to things. They've known have you not known have you not heard again it's a rhetorical question to say you know this, you've heard this, I've told you many times and now I'm bringing you back to it again.

How many times have you had to be reminded of God's inexhaustible sustenance of all things? You know, everything hinges upon who God is and what God is and here he's one who does not faint. Now there are five things about God that they are being reminded of. Five things. Number one, God is everlasting.

Verse 28, the everlasting God. He's infinite he's the creator of everything there's no beginning or no end Everlasting has to do with time. There is not one single nanosecond of time that is not governed by God. You know we're so concerned with the short term but God is working an everlasting plan and and And every moment from an infinity past to infinity future is under his control Why why David in Psalm 31 verse 15 could say my times are in your hands? Secondly this the second of five things that they're being reminded of is that God is the Lord.

He is the Lord, the sovereign, omnipotent Lord. And the third thing they're reminded of, that He is the creator of the ends of the earth the creator of the ends of the earth the whole the whole earth is under His sovereign control You know we live in a very small footprint of his creation. We drive these roads, we walk these paths. Every square inch is under the observational control of the creator. The fourth thing about God that they're being reminded of is that he does not faint.

He's never out of energy. He's never out of resources. The fifth is that he is not weary. He is not weary. The stars are coming out by number.

His faithfulness is shown by night. He's not weary at all. He wrestles with Jacob until he prevails. He's not weary. You cannot wear him out.

You know these words faint and weary are a critical part of Isaiah 40. They're part of the whole message of this section. These words appear seven times here and so it should help us to understand the inflection point, the emphasis that Isaiah is making. But God is speaking of a people who are faint and weary, people who feel like they're giving up, they can't see that they go on. Their fatigue, however, is not physical, it's spiritual.

But he never sleeps He lets us sleep He works while he sleep He rested on the seventh day, but as he rested since Jesus Christ said I and my father are always working And then the sixth thing is that his understanding is unsearchable We cannot understand what he's doing his ways are not our ways his thoughts are not our thoughts You know can you understand why God has put you at this moment of your life? And the answer is no, you cannot understand it because God's ways are in searchable You will never know why these things are happening to you not not with perfect exactitude There is there is an element of revelation and blessing that God gives us to show us causes and effects That's I'm not discounting that at all But I think what he's saying here is that we don't live by our own analysis. We live by his promises. We do not live by our own analysis. We live by his promises.

We can only thrive when we base our security on his sovereign wisdom. This is why His unsearchability is the basis for our peace. And I think that this doctrine of the unsearchability of God is one of the most freeing doctrines of the Bible. It means that you can live happily and not understand everything. You don't have to know.

You remember that story of the missionaries that were killed down in South America long ago with Nate Saint. And one of the wives who lost her husband was asked, Why do you think this happened? And she said, you know, we never thought to ask why. We don't ask why. We know that God knows.

That's enough. You know, we may be confused, but he's never confused. We may be stumped, he's never stumped. We may be blocked, he's never blocked. We may be disoriented, but he is orienting all things.

And our strength is not based on our experiences but are on his omniscience. Our strength cannot be based on our experiences but upon his omniscience. Our hope is not based on our projections, but on his promises. And he is uncomprehensible. Man can never learn all there is about him.

Certainly not in the natural world or not anything, man will always be in a struggle of discovery and man will never discover everything. And why do we think that we will discover about everything about our lives? At the same time, This does not mean that God is unknowable. We can know Him. This is why we know in the Bible that those who received Him, He gave the power to become the sons of God.

We can receive him, we can know him. He is knowable, but he is so vast that we will never stop learning to know him. No one ever came to the bottom of his wisdom. You know, Christians know this. They can read a verse in the Bible 3, 000 times and still not get to the bottom of it.

They can read it when they're 17, as would be my case, and they can read it again when they're 24 and 36 and 60. And there's more. There's always more. He's an everlasting depository of wisdom and beauty and goodness. And His unsearchability guarantees that you will never exhaust his beauty or his goodness.

There's always more for you. There's always more around the corner. What a wonderful thing it is that God is unsearchable. He is unsearchable. And What that means is that he will always interest you.

He always has more for you. More truth, more insight, more discernment, more love, more comfort, more of everything. Which is why I think when the Lord Jesus Christ turned the water into the wine, they said, he brings the best wine out last. It just keeps getting better and better and better and better. This is the doctrine of his unsearchability.

He's an everlasting vast store of beauty and wisdom. Behold your God. How do you wait for him? How can you possibly wait for him? Wait for him by beholding the inexhaustible sustainer He neither faints nor is weary And then behold the rejuvenator of the weak.

Verse 29 through 31. God declares his work as one who rejuvenates the soul of man. And he promises a supply of strength that says He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might. He increases strength. This word weak, He gives power to the weak, you see that?

In verse 29. The weak in verse 29 are the complainers in verse 27 and The whole idea is here is of weariness of being out of energy ready to give way Insecure lacking the intensity in the the fortitude you're in a downward trajectory So he uses this word that indicates that, but then he uses the word no might. The word might means multiplying energy and reproductive power. It's used in context of having an ongoing Impact you know people want to have might they want to make a difference They want to make their mark and they launch out on these ridiculous desperate attempts to have significance and a name for themselves. But they don't understand that their only hope is God's might.

It's God's might that causes this to happen. And then it says, he gives power, strength, and substance. It's a word that's used to speak of the strength of animals. You've encountered the pagans who think that they'll find strength if they eat the meat of a lion. They'll become lion-hearted if they eat the heart of a lion.

That's just absolutely ridiculous. This is just as ridiculous as thinking that This next self-help book is going to give you strength strength is in God. It's in God alone. He's the only one And it's a beautiful thing to see it in action, you know one of the one of the true signs of a true Christian is That they can say I'm getting stronger now. I can see how I'm stronger now than I was five years ago.

I can see how my thinking and my feeling is stronger now. I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm being healed now. And in my healing my strength is coming in these different areas. Of course, it's not perfect strength. But I think as a church we should rejoice at the various ways that God is making us stronger now.

Because this is what God does. This is a work of God when people are are being strengthened. The true Christian looks at himself and he he sees his weakness, but he can also see the way that God has strengthened him and helped him. But we're always looking to the wrong sources for strength. And here God addresses the youth in verse 30 the strength of youth he uses youth as an illustration Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall Now here God's addressing the youth and he marks out one of the particular wonderful qualities about youth and that is the strength of youth.

The actual word that he uses here has to do with the strength and the stamina of youth. As you grow older it recedes. When you, it particularly hits when you hit 40 and then it hits again at 50 and it keeps hitting you until finally you have no strength. But at the same time as you grow your strength your physical strength may wane, but your spiritual strength may grow will grow There's this reverse Strengthening that happens you grow weaker physically. I think it's a parable of the unprofitability of relying on the strength of the flesh and our great need for the spirit.

There's a lesson in the loss of strength in older age. But the word he uses has to do with youth that are fit for athletics and military service. But he says even youth stumble. There's always an end to human strength. Always.

Youth cannot trust in their strength. And they should not. Any more than youth should trust in their beauty because there's something more. The apostle Paul spoke of the relative importance of exercise and athletic strength. But here something happens even to you if they become weary.

It means that they become overwhelmed by their circumstances and they might feel like giving up. They might feel tired and discouraged and They might think that they need something, so they go get a self-help book. Or they try to prop up their strength through some kind of entertainment or something that will make them happy again, that will give them some kind of emotional jag that they need. This is the reason that so many people in our culture turn to movies. They turn to fake stories rather than to God.

And they wonder why they're always lost. They wonder why they're always falling into this cycle of despondency. It's because they're seeking their strength in the wrong thing. They're seeking their strength in a fake story about fake people and fake propositions. But yet they find some, you can get some strength for a little while, just like the addict.

Gets a little bit of strength and then he falls. And then he goes back again and he gets a little bit of strength, but it's less next time. And then he goes back and it's a little bit less the next time. And the next time and the next time and the addict finally finds that he can get no more and it's darkness all the time and this is the trajectory of those who seek their strength apart from the Lord. You know we think that it's a it's an activity or a vacation or an entertainment or a sport that will fix it all.

You know, husbands do this all the time. I'm sure there are no husbands here like this. But you know, their wives are completely worn out. They're completely, they're desperate. They're out of hope and they're completely exhausted.

And they're a little bit angry at their husbands. And so their husbands say, I'll take her out on a date that'll fix everything and they take her out on a date but it's just like that drug it falls pretty quick they think they think that they can take their wife on a vacation to fix her And they think that they don't have to change their own lives but just take her, give her a little bit of rest. Now it's good for husbands to give their wives rest. That's a good thing. Husbands need to do that.

But often we rely on things that aren't profitable in the long haul. I think the Bible makes it clear that there are cycles of rest and activity that we should recognize. And being exhausted is definitely something to move away from, to find strength. And there are different ways you do that. But often we think falsely that taking them on a date is going to change everything.

When there's something deeper there, Something more profound, something more influential and helpful and beautiful and good. So I think my advice would be take your wife out on a date, but direct her to behold her God. You know some of you might be saying I just I'm out of resources. I want to stop fighting. I just want to embrace the resignation that my soul is longing for.

You know, on what basis do you continue on? Where do you find the reasons and the strength? You know, What does it look like? And he gives the answer in verse 31. The answer is waiting on the Lord.

On what basis do you find your strength? Upon What foundation does your strength rest? And it's here in verse 31. It's on waiting on the Lord. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. So what does it mean to wait? Well, it's a verb and it implies action.

Waiting is not the same thing as killing time. Waiting is not hanging out. Waiting on the Lord is something that you do. There's this popular teaching that the way to health and happiness is to just let go and let God. That's not what waiting on the Lord is.

Sanctification doesn't come through inaction. And that's not what this kind of waiting is. It is an inactivity. What does waiting on the Lord look like? Well, it is an activity.

Primarily, waiting on the Lord is the activity of living on every word that proceeds on the mouth of God. Waiting on the Lord is The activity of living on every word that proceeds on the mouth of God. Waiting on the Lord is the activity of living on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's how you wait on the Lord. Now there are many details to it.

The writer of Hebrews talked about pursuing holiness without which no one will see the Lord. You cannot see the strength of the Lord without this pursuit of holiness. People are running in their search for happiness in the wrong place. Holiness is where it's found. It has to do with running the race with endurance it has to do with being filled with the Holy Spirit I'm going to give you ten actions that are connected with waiting on the Lord I'll give them to you very quickly number one in Psalm 25 verses 2 and 3, it's trusting in God.

The second action that's connected with waiting in the Lord is in Psalm 39 7. It's hoping in God and His Word. Number three, seeking God, Psalm 69 6. Number four being courageous Psalm 27 14 number five turning from idolatry first Thessalonians 1 9 & 10 number six rejoicing Isaiah 25 verse 9 number 7 keeping God's way psalm 37 34 number 8 abstaining from revenge, Proverbs 20 verse 22. Number nine, seeking the kingdom of God, Luke 12, 31 and 36.

And number 10, observing the mercy and justice, Hosea 12, six. These are the things that you do That character that are characterized and are connected with waiting on the Lord Waiting on the Lord is not just kicking back waiting for something to happen. It's beholding your God that's how you wait on the Lord and then Isaiah speaks of what happens to those who wait on the Lord and There are several things the first thing that comes from waiting the Lord is strength your strength shall be renewed this word renew means exchange in other words you will have a better strength you will trade in your strength your old worn out unprofitable strength you'll swap your old strengthening for for new you'll take your old comfort foods and your entertainments and your vacations and your movies and your distractions and your games the things that used to recharge you and you'll find something better than that you'll renew your strength and the second blessing that comes from waiting on the Lord is that you'll soar like eagles they shall mount up with wings like eagles here's a reason that God uses eagles as an example for the power that youth need.

You know, eagles are magnificent birds. I've seen two of them flying over our property from time to time, but they're mentioned 34 times in the Bible. Job 39 verse 27, I think, gives a sort of a global picture of Why we have the imagery of the eagle does the eagle mount up at your command and make its nest on high On the rock it dwells and resides on the crag of the rock and the stronghold from there it spies out its prey Its eyes observe from afar eagles are huge birds seven to eight foot Wingspan you know they can their range of vision they can see 270 degrees. They can spot a rabbit two miles away. If you had the eyesight of an eagle you could see an ant from the top of a 10-story building.

He can carry three times his weight. He flies high, sometimes 30, 000 feet. He flies at 45 miles an hour gliding and 100 miles an hour diving. He has 7, 000 feathers that are replaced every 10 years. The eagle is just an astonishing bird.

God uses the eagle to explain his the greatness of his power. In Exodus 19, 4 we read, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself." The third blessing that comes from waiting in the Lord after mounting up with wings like eagles is that you'll run and not be weary. The fourth blessing is that you will walk and not faint. And so what Isaiah is telling us is that he will renew, You will mount up, you'll run, you'll walk. He's referring to your whole life.

It means that your whole life is characterized by a strength that is not your own. When you're beholding the Lord, you will fly differently, you'll run differently, You'll walk differently. These are the blessings of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ Let me give you five more blessings that are promised to those who wait on the Lord salvation Proverbs 20 verse 22 strength Psalm 27 14 Inheritance, Psalm 37, 9. Absence of shame, Isaiah 49, 23. Fifth, His hearing your cry, Isaiah 40 verse 1.

Six, goodness, lamentations, 325. All of these things are blessings from the Lord. You know, so here we are. We're in a church and God knows our works. He knows all of our hearts.

He sees into all of our meditations. He knows whether we fall into this self-pity that he's described here. And he's, he in many ways is answering the question how do you wait on the Lord and it brings us to the whole concept of waiting the Bible in many ways is a book about waiting for the next blessing that God brings God's people waited for the Messiah and he came and now God's people are waiting again. We're waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and and how do we wait on the Lord? How will we wait on the Lord?

How will we occupy our time? How will we fill our minds? How will we do this? How will we spend these days in waiting? And I think God through Isaiah has given us such a wonderful way to wait.

First of all, to behold the incomparable, holy one who speaks. Second, to behold the creator of the heavens. Third, to behold the controller of the heavens. Fourth, to behold the interrogator of man. Fifth, to behold the inexhaustible sustainer.

Sixth, behold the rejuvenator of the weak. So Isaiah actually ends where he began. He begins with comfort and then he ends with the result of comfort. Strength. To be born up like wings of eagles.

To be carried in his bosom and then to be placed on eagles wings this is what it means to wait upon the Lord it is to behold your God if anybody would want to know how to make their way through this waiting time they wait through the activity of a verb beholding your God and that is how the church waits. You pray with me. Lord we thank you for these beautiful words they're astonishing. Lord they're so helpful they're comforting they're convicting they're so good for us I pray oh Lord for us as a church that you would make us a living picture of those who behold their God. That you, oh God, would be the center and the heart of everything that we are about.

Oh Lord that you would make it so that you do a miracle here in this church among all of us that we would behold our God and This would be enough for us. Amen.